Donkey Kong Country

It's time to take a stroll back memory lane to the age of classic arcade games!  If you weren't saving all your quarters in the 1980's to play Pac Man, Frogger or Donkey Kong at the mall.....what were you doing with your allowance?  No matter how old I get I continue to plug in my old game consoles and play these classic games whenever I get nostalgic.

Donkey Kong was an instant hit and quite simple to play.  You played as Mario and had to get to the top of a set of girders while avoiding barrels and fireballs thrown by Donkey Kong to rescue your girlfriend, Pauline.  Barrels are common items in the Donkey Kong series. They first appeared in the 1981 game Donkey Kong and have remained a recurring item since then. Barrels are found in most DK games usually used as weapons, for bonus games, transportation methods, or even as enemies.

As part of our "Bourbon Education" on this roadtrip we wanted to explore how Bourbon barrels were actually made for the distilleries (and Donkey Kong!).  Not far from Bardstown, KY (the "Bourbon Capital of the World") sits a small town that manufactures the majority of barrels that are shipped to distillers.  We were able to tour the factory and see firsthand the process involved in "building a barrel."

THE SETUP:  The master cooper selects the optimal staves for a barrel. He inspects the grain, sap flow marks, knots, worm holes and even the pattern in the grain. Every barrel has 32 staves carefully arranged in a specific pattern. The set-up is a puzzle as each stave varies slightly in width and a barrel cannot have any gaps.
BENDING:  To bend the staves into the barrel shape without cracking the wood, each barrel is warmed over an open fire. Once the outside of the barrel reaches 300˚F, temporary hoops are placed on the barrel by a hydraulic machine to force the barrel into shape.
TOASTING/CHARRING:  The newly shaped barrel returns to the fire for toasting. Toasting crystalizes natural sugars in the wood, releasing aromas of freshly baked bread and roasted marshmallows. During the charring of the barrels they are being burned from the inside with an open flame. This is done far hotter and shorter than the toasting.  The Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey laws require a charred barrel for maturation. However, there are different kinds of char. The intensity of the char is counted from one to four, with four being the highest. The number four char is often referred to as an alligator char, because the surface of the burned wood breaks and it looks like the rough skin of an alligator.
HOOPING:  The temporary hoops that had been applied to the ends of the barrel during bending are removed and replaced with two new, clean and permanent galvanized steel hoops on each end. Temporary hoops around the belly of the barrel are removed, but before new hoops are secured, the outside of the barrel is sanded down, creating a pristine and smooth finish. After sanding, the final hoops are hammered and nailed on.

I'll end this blog post with a few interesting facts about barrels.

• Barrels are shaped like that for a reason.  They are easy to roll like a wheel, but also stand upright to remain stationary.
• Barrels are not made 100% water tight.  When barrels are made, they are made as tight and leak-proof as possible, but they are only watertight after being “cured” by soaking in water, often for several days. This causes the wooden staves to soak up moisture and swell, making the barrel watertight through pressure against the steel hoops.
• Some of the content in the barrel will evaporate.  This loss, usually 2-5% every year, is known as the "angel's share."
• Many woods are difficult to work with or too porous, so oak and a few other types were commonly used. Soon, wine and beer makers noticed that oak wood actually enhanced and improved the flavor and quality of the drink, so oak wood barrels became the standard for brewing and aging barrels.
• When a big monkey starts rolling barrels at you.....grab the MALLET!!!